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Who GETS CREDIT for that new thing?

Posted on June 19, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

…  who commenced the Revolution? is as difficult as that of the first inventors of a thousand good things.  For example, who first discovered the principle of gravity ?  Not Newton ;  for Galileo, who died the year that Newton was born, had measured its force in the descent of gravid [pregnant, or burdened, heavy] bodies.  Who invented the Lavoiserian chemistry ?  The English say Dr. Black, by the preparatory discovery of latent heat.  Who invented the steamboat ?  Was it Gerbert, the Marquis of Worcester, Newcomen, Savary, Papin, Fitch, Fulton ?  The fact is, that one new idea leads to another, that to a third, and so on through a course of time until some one, with whom no one of these ideas was original, combines all together, and produces what is justly called a new invention.
To Benjamin Waterhouse, March 13, 1818  (2nd letter)

Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Real leaders know that many deserve the credit for any new thing.
Benjamin Waterhouse posed the question that opens this excerpt. Jefferson answered by example. The conclusion was no single person but rather by a combination of efforts. The last sentence is key. Eventually, someone would combine the work of others to produce something new. That final person might not have been a contributor to the result but an aggregator of others’ ideas.

Thus, Jefferson could not credit the revolution’s beginning to one person. It belonged to many. He credited others with the inspiration that he later wove into the Declaration of Independence.

Often, the final result is credited to the final person involved (Newton for gravity, Fulton for the steam engine, Jefferson for the Declaration), but it is the work of others that enables that single, final person to bring it all together.

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Doom-and-gloom folks: Beware!

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

When I contemplate the immense advances in science and discoveries in the arts which have been made within the period of my life, I look forward with confidence to equal advances by the present generation, and have no doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of witches.
To Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, March 3, 1818

Patrick Lee’s Explanation
What kind of leader has GREAT HOPE for the future?
This letter addressed the question: What person was responsible for the beginning of America’s move toward the revolution of 1776? Jefferson’s conclusion was that no single person was responsible, that “one new idea leads to another,” and altogether and eventually, the task was accomplished. He saw value and progress in the contribution of each person.

He expressed that same confidence in this closing thought:
1. Our forefathers burned witches.
2. Our fathers did not.
3. We have seen “immense advances” in science and arts in my lifetime.
4. By these examples, I expect similar progress in the next generation.
And by implication, he expected even more from each generation to follow.

In light of this, what would Jefferson’s response be to the challenges of population growth, adequate food production, pollution, epidemics, global warming? Does his example encourage you?

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Can an honest man be a dishonest politician?

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

The [My] room being hung around with a collection of the portraits of remarkable men, among them were those of Bacon, Newton and Locke, [Alexander] Hamilton asked me who they were. I told him they were my trinity of the three greatest men the world had ever produced, naming them. He paused for some time: “the greatest man,” said he, “that ever lived, was Julius Caesar.” Mr. Adams was honest as a politician, as well as a man; Hamilton honest as a man, but, as a politician, believing in the necessity of either force or corruption to govern men.
To Dr. Benjamin Rush, January 16, 1811

Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Honest leaders are both honest people AND honest politicians.
Jefferson recalled a working dinner he hosted at Monticello several decades earlier for the Cabinet secretaries and Vice-President Adams. Dinner and business accomplished, the conversation, “sitting at our wine,” turned to other topics. Here, in a nutshell, Jefferson explained the difference between himself and Treasury Secretary Hamilton.

Jefferson’s heroes were Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and John Locke, men of intellect, reason, merit and integrity. Hamilton’s hero was the dictator Julius Caesar.

Jefferson believed men capable of self-government,  employing the same talents as his heroes. Hamilton believed men incapable of leading themselves, that they had to be coerced or bribed into following.

John Adams was honest both as a man and a politician. Hamilton was credited with honesty only as a man, not as a leader.

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Can a warrior change his stripes?

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

… I see with my own eyes … You are becoming farmers … employing that labor in their cultivation which you formerly employed in hunting and in war; and I see handsome specimens of cotton cloth raised, spun and wove by yourselves. You are also raising cattle and hogs for your food, and horses to assist your labors …  your next want to be mills to grind your corn, which by relieving your women from the loss of time in beating it into meal, will enable them to spin and weave more. When a man has enclosed and improved his farm, builds a good house on it … he will wish when he dies that these things shall go to his wife and children … You will, therefore, find it necessary to establish laws for this … You will find it necessary then to appoint good men, as judges, to decide contests between man and man …
My children, this is what I wished to say to you. To go on in learning to cultivate the earth and to avoid war …
My children, I thank you for your visit and pray to the Great Spirit who made us all and planted us all in this land to live together like brothers …
To the Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation, January 10, 1806

Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Wise leaders want to see their followers improve their station in life.
These Chiefs had just visited the President. He complimented them on their progress in turning from war to farming. He believed that if the natives could make that transition, they’d no longer need the vast expanses of land they’d hunted on for generations. That land could become available for settlement … by more farmers. Jefferson loved farmers!

They would need more labor-saving devices to relieve their women of drudgery. They would need laws to protect their property and judges to help them through conflicts.

He warned about the young men in their midst who still pursued a warrior lifestyle, of its “folly and iniquity.”

For sure, Jefferson’s attitude was paternalistic, repeatedly referring to the chiefs as “my children.” And he was naive in his expectations about warriors turning themselves into farmers. Still, his motivation was for their peace and progress, and he saw agriculture as the means to that end.

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On the death of a child

Posted on June 7, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

I lament to learn that a like misfortune has enabled you to estimate the afflictions of a father on the loss of a beloved child. However terrible the possibility of such another accident, it is still a blessing for you of inestimable value that you would not even then descend childless to the grave. Three sons, and hopeful ones too, are a rich treasure. I rejoice when I hear of young men of virtue and talents, worthy to receive, and likely to preserve the splendid inheritance of self-government, which we have acquired and shaped for them.
To John Tyler, June 18, 1804

Patrick Lee’s Explanation
This leader desperately needed the good health of his only remaining child.
This excerpt to the father of a future President is also from the letter featured in the June 5 post, on freedom of the press. This one is on a sadder subject, for both men.
Tyler’s eldest child of eight, daughter Anne, had died the year before at age 25. Just two months before writing this letter, Jefferson’s younger daughter died, 26 year-old Maria. (Four other Jefferson children died very young, leaving only Martha and Maria surviving to adulthood.) The first sentence of this post staked out common ground shared by two grieving fathers.

The second sentence contemplates something worse, the death of another child. Tragic should that happen, John Tyler would still have six living children. Jefferson called that a blessing “of inestimable value.” Should that fate strike him and take his firstborn Martha, he would “descend childless to the grave.” It was something Jefferson feared.

That second sad fate struck neither man. Tyler’s seven remaining children and Jefferson’s Martha all outlived their fathers.

Interesting to note, too, is the “rich treasure” Tyler had in three sons. Jefferson’s only son died within days of birth. His name is unknown.

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Got something to hide? Muzzle the press!

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

… I may err in my measures, but never shall deflect from the intention to fortify the public liberty by every possible means, and to put it out of the power of the few to riot on the labors of the many. No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions…
To John Tyler, June 18, 1804

Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Leaders with nothing to hide love a free press!
John Tyler, 1747-1813, was a friend and contemporary, a fellow Virginian, lawyer, planter and patriot. He was also the father of John Tyler, the 10th President of the United States.

Expanding and strengthening public liberty was a life-long goal for Jefferson. America was an “experiment” in that goal, toward a government based on “reason and truth.” To achieve that end, “all the avenues to the truth” must be left open.

The first and most effective avenue for liberty, truth and reason was a free press. That same free press was the first victim of those who had something to hide.

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Out of a death came a new future

Posted on June 3, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

It [your letter which arrived October 17] found me a little emerging from the stupor of mind which had rendered me as dead to the world as she was whose loss occasioned it. Your letter recalled to my memory that there were persons still living of much value to me …
Before that event my scheme of life had been determined. I had folded myself in the arms of retirement, and rested all prospects of future happiness on domestic & literary objects. A single event wiped away all my plans and left me a blank which I had not the spirits to fill up. In this state of mind an appointment from Congress found me, requiring me to cross the Atlantic…
To The Marquis de Chastellux, November 26, 1782

Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Great tragedy can destroy leaders … or make them greater.
This French scholar and officer visited Monticello in the spring of 1782 shortly before Martha Jefferson gave birth to Lucy Elizabeth on May 8. This was Martha’s seventh childbirth, and she never recovered from the toll. She died on September 6, shortly before her 34th birthday. Her husband suffered an emotional breakdown and was disconsolate for weeks. Chastellux’s letter helped pull Jefferson out of his stupor.

Although his plans to remain retired among his family, farms and books “had been determined,” her death wiped his future clear. His friends in Congress, hoping to re-energize him, appointed his as a commissioner to help negotiate the final peace settlement with England. For several reasons, it would be almost two years before Jefferson sailed for Europe on a different diplomatic mission.

If Martha had lived, Jefferson might have remained content for the rest of his life in a relatively private world atop his little mountain.

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Can anyone damage your closest friendships?

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

I had for some time observed, in the public papers, dark hints and mysterious innuendoes of a correspondence of yours with a friend, to whom you had opened your bosom without reserve … And now it is said to be actually published. It has not yet reached us, but extracts have been given, and such as seemed most likely to draw a curtain of separation between you and myself. ..The circumstances of the times, in which we have happened to live … placed us in a state of apparent opposition, which some might suppose to be personal also … It would be strange indeed if, at our years, we were to go an age back to hunt up imaginary, or forgotten facts, to disturb the repose of affections so sweetening to the evening of our lives … Beseeching you then not to suffer your mind to be disquieted by this wicked attempt to poison it’s peace, and praying you to throw it by, among the things which have never happened, I add sincere assurances of my unabated, and constant attachment, friendship and respect.
To John Adams, October 12, 1823

Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Faithful leaders have their friends’ backs, regardless.
Apparently, a “friend” of Adams’ had published Adams’ confidential letters to him.  Adams, always outspoken, may have written about the differences that estranged Jefferson and him decades earlier. (That breach was repaired in 1812.) Brief references to that violation of Adams’ confidence had already reached Jefferson in Virginia.
Jefferson wrote to his old friend to reassure him that nothing would interfere with their lifelong friendship: “Be assured, my dear Sir, that I am incapable of recieving the slightest impression from the effort now made to plant thorns on the pillow of age, worth, and wisdom, and to sow tares between friends who have been such for near half a century.”

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What gets YOU through life’s crises?

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

The most fortunate of us, in our journey through life, frequently meet with calamities and misfortunes … to fortify our minds against the attacks of these calamities and misfortunes, should be one of the principal studies and endeavours of our lives. The only method of doing this is to assume a perfect resignation to the Divine will, to consider that whatever does happen, must happen … by our uneasiness, we cannot prevent the blow … but we may add to its force after it has fallen. These considerations … may enable us … to surmount the difficulties thrown in our way; to bear up with a tolerable degree of patience under this burthen of life; and to proceed with a pious and unshaken resignation, till we arrive at our journey’s end, when we may deliver up our trust into the hands of him who gave it, and receive such reward as to him shall seem proportioned to our merit … Few things will disturb him [a man of this persuasion]at all: nothing will disturb him much.
To John Page, July 15, 1763

Patrick Lee’s Explanation
Acceptance of difficulties helps leaders grow and move on.
The last post on May 22 post featured an 80 year old Jefferson on the evidence for a “Creator.” This post from a 20 year old Jefferson, suggested that “a perfect resignation to the Divine will” was the best way to deal with the troubles life throws your way. That resignation develops:
– Ability to overcome
– Patience to endure
– Determination to move forward
Note that Jefferson observed the “most fortunate of us” had these sad experiences. Why would such a one be fortunate? Because it developed these essential qualities!
Look at the last line of the post again. Someone with this mindset will be troubled by very few of life’s challenges and greatly troubled by none of them.
Before we give young Jefferson too much credit, though, the theme of this letter was his resignation about his prospects with a recent infatuation-interest, Rebecca Burwell. Even so, this acceptance of “the Divine will” became a theme throughout Jefferson’s life.

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Did Jefferson believe in “intelligent design”?

Posted on May 22, 2013 by Thomas Jefferson Leadership

… when we take a view of the Universe … The movements of the heavenly bodies … the structure of our earth itself, with it’s distribution of lands, waters and atmosphere, animal and vegetable bodies … the mineral substances, their generation and uses, it is impossible, I say, for the human mind not to believe that there is, in all this, design, cause and effect, up to an ultimate cause, a fabricator of all things … their preserver and regulator …  and their regenerator …
So irresistible are these evidences of an intelligent and powerful Agent … [and] in the hypothesis of an eternal pre-existence of a creator, rather than in that of a self-existent Universe.
To John Adams, April 11, 1823

Patrick Lee’s Explanation

Observant leaders recognize a higher power at work.

Here is the question Jefferson was addressing: Has the universe always existed, or was it created?

Jefferson is widely claimed, and incorrectly so I think, to be a deist in matters of religion. Deists might consider the creator as a master “clockmaker,” one who made the universe, wound its mainspring tight, and then set it loose to run on its own, leaving mankind alone to govern and improve it.

Jefferson believed in a more involved creator, a more benevolent one. He credited this “Agent,” God if you will, not only with creation (as “fabricator”), but with sustaining it (as “preserver and regulator”) and repairing and improving it (as “regenerator”). Jefferson’s God was not a hands-off one and denying his existence was impossible.

Other parts of this letter will give doctrinaire Christians fits. (He RIPS John Calvin!) Jefferson believed in a generous, benevolent God, in Jesus as the greatest of all moral teachers, but not in Jesus’ divinity. Good works were all that God expected.

The 80-year-old  ended this letter to his older friend, affirming that he awaited the end of this life “with more readiness than reluctance.” He signed off, “May we meet there again, in Congress, with our antient Colleagues, and recieve with them the seal of approbation `Well done, good and faithful servants.’”

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